Citizenship, Activism and the City: The Invisible and the Impossible

By Patricia Burke Wood

Were the occupations of 2010-11 - from Spain to Tahrir Square to Occupy Wall Street - a success or failure? Are they the model for urban radical politics? This book challenges common understandings and underlying assumptions of what constitutes activism and resistance. It proposes a critical urban theory of politics and citizenship that is grounded in the city as it is inhabited. For those who are marginalized, the city is a double-edged sword of oppression and emancipation.

This book argues for an intersectional approach that actively dismantles hierarchies and embraces a wider range of acts of resistance and creative transformation, one in which we recognize these acts of citizenship as a form of constitutionalism. Wood reframes the theorization of protest and of the city, 'post-political' literature and the history of protest, and Marxist and anarchist ideas about the time and space of politics. Through this, she adopts a unique approach to provide new theoretical insights and challenges to post-political thinking.

This book will be valuable reading for those interested in political, urban and social geography, in addition to political economy and progressive politics in the urban context.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0815351534
• ISBN13: 9780815351535
• Release Date: January 2018
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 136 Pages
• Weight: 0.44 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.1" x 9.2"